A gold Necklace
by chelsylynn91
Summary: The necklace was gold. A gold cross, a gold chain, perfectly beautiful. It would last forever, much like me. Timeless… ownerless… loveless… It really does have the phantom in it. It may take a few chapters though.
1. Chapter 1

The necklace was gold. A gold cross, a gold chain, perfectly beautiful. It would last forever, much like me. Timeless… ownerless… loveless…

* * *

"Hurry up! We're gona be late!" I yelled trying to tear my friend, Summer, away from her boyfriend, Justin.

"Hey," I stopped dead. Shane Johnson was standing right in front of me. Perfectly tall, possibly the most beautiful emo boy I'd ever seen and impossibly strong. His beautiful muscles could be seen rippling under a tight white shirt.

"Move, Shane," I said rudely, "I'm going to be late."

"What's old Higgins going to do to you? Make you sing out of tune?"

"Shut up." As I pushed past him, my heart jumped into my throat. I was mean to him. I was mean to the most beautiful, nicest boy in the world. He grabbed my arm.

"Layla, wait. I… I… will you go to the dance with me?"

"What?"

"It's okay, I understand."

"No, no… I'll go with you."

"You will?"

"Why not?" That's when the bell rang. "Damn you Shane! Now I'm late!" I yelled jokingly at him as I ran into hell… I mean chorus. I ran inside and Summer was waiting on the inside of the door.

"Walk with a limp!"

"What?"

"I told Mr. Higgins that you were going to be late because you twisted your ankle!"

"Oh! Okay! Thanks!" I said while faking a limp into the class room.

"Why are you late?" Mr. Higgins asked sharply.

"I'm sorry; I tripped and twisted my ankle."

"Well, quit being so ditzy!"

"Sorry, sir." I said threw gritted teeth. I walked back over to my seat. We had an odd arrangement of chairs. The Girls and guys were randomly scattered about the room. There was an empty space between Summer and I. I guess it was to keep us from talking. Like that would ever work. There was a knock on the door. Since it was SSR, silent sustained reading, or as we call it shut up sit down and read, the teacher got up and walked over to the door and opened it.

"Who are you?" He asked

"Shane Johnson, sir." Mr. Higgins sat there for a second as if to say 'so?' but then he realized that Shane had nothing left to say and said,

"What do you want?"

"The counselor switched me into this class, sir" My stomach lurched. No way, was Shane Johnson going to be in my class.

"Well… can you sing?"

"I guess so."

"Can I hear you…?"

"I guess so…" You couldn't tell from his voice, but Shane was doing this to make him mad.

"He sighed. "Are you Baritone, Bass, or Tenor?"

"Tenor, sir."

"Can you read music?"

"Yea."

"We'll see about that." Mr. Higgins ran to the file cabinet and pulled out a random tenor solo.

"Sing this." He instructed Shane. It was like a chorus of angels had erupted out of Shane's mouth. Could this noise be coming from a mere boy. At the end of the song, Mr. Higgins looked up at him and smiled. You couldn't really tell though, cause he never smiled. It looked more like he was about to sneeze. Everyone just sat there stunned.

"Well Mr. Johnson, congratulations. You've just earned yourself a seat in chorus. You may sit between Miss Layla, and Miss Summer. Maybe you can shut them up."

"Thank you sir." He sat down next to me.

**The end. Reviews are welcome! Constructive criticism would be well liked! And for those of you who hate grammatical errors, I really did proof read it. I just suck at finding my own mistakes. I will get my friend to proof it for me though. I just have to get her to do it for me. Lol okay. Well, you know what to do. Go review!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry I've had a bit of a family crisis so I haven't been able to re… what's the word I'm looking for? Well, you get the point. Any way, here's chapter 2.**

The school dance is tomorrow. I have to get my dress still. I'm a last minute shopper. What can I say? I take after my mother. Well, at least I think I do… She died when I was 3. I still remember her singing to me at night. Well, that was a long time ago. Plus, I still have my father. Kind of. He works nightshifts and I haven't seen him for about 10 days now. Oh well. I still have Shane… Wow. I just realized how bad my life sucks…

"Layla?"

"Yes?" Shane had just come into my bedroom interrupting my thoughts.

"Do you have a dress yet?"

"No and how did you get into my room?"

"The door to the house was open."

"Oh okay. I'm going today."

"Well let me drive you so I can get a tie at the same time."

"Sorry I out it off this long. I just hate shopping."

"No, it's fine. Truth be told, I hate it too." We both laughed. I had an idea what I wanted my dress to look like but I didn't think any stores would have anything more than some sluty bright pink dress. That's all I could find online, anyway.

"Come on. Let's get in the car. Any place you want to go first?"

"Let's try that prom store on 2nd avenue."

"Okay. I doubt they'll have what your looking for, though."

"Have you been in there already?"

"Yes. I went in with my sister to find a dress."

"Who's she going with?"

"Mikey."

"No way!"

"Yup!"

"Wow. She got lucky there!"

"And you didn't?"

"I sure did. I'm the luckiest of all!" **Gushy moment**

"Right. Any way, let's go."

"Well, this one isn't… terrible." We'd been looking for hours. I picked up the 500th pink sluty dress in a row. This one actually had a thin spaghetti strap for sleeves. A major step up from the other ones we'd seen.

"Well, let's go to a different store that doesn't look so… pink."

"Yes, sir." I said we walked around for a little while longer, and then I saw it. The perfect dress was hanging in a store window. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. I ran to the glass and looked at in awe. It was black… **just go look in my profile for the darn thing. Thank you. Lol. **

"This is defiantly the one." I said. I ran inside the store to try it on. I wouldn't let Shane see me in it because I wanted him to be surprised for tomorrow. I told him that he needed a black tie.

"But then everything I wear will be black." He complained. "Wait. That's what I wanted." I laughed at him and bought the dress. Next we went to some kind of suit place. Shane had already bout his tux and the only other thing he needed was the tie, which we bought.

"Is it time to go home yet?" I complained.

"Yea. Come on." He grabbed my hand and we ran threw the mall to the car. But we got distracted by a really big, really cool fountain. I pushed him over into it. He Looked at me and then when I said

"Sorry! Let me help you out!" He grabbed my hand and pulled me into the ice cold water. It was the middle of winter and I was in a fountain. Ice cold and dripping wet. I glared at him and looked up to see the police people looking at us,

"Have you been, you know, out on the town? Drinking some beer? Maybe had a little too much alcohol?"

"Uhhh… no…" Said Shane in his best possible drunk voice, "or if I was, I can't remember…" He said. I looked from him to the officers.

"Son, can you please step out of the fountain and walk in a straight line?"

"Sure." He got out and to my great happiness, walked in a straight line. Then he pulled me out of the fountain and we ran as fast as we could back to the car. I jumped in and, seeing as how the police men were fatter than you could imagine, the police wouldn't recognize the car. **That didn't really make sense… but you get it! **

"Go! Go!" I yelled making Shane step on the gas. We sped out of the parking garage and into the road. We took an indirect way home and made it there in one piece and with out officers pulling guns on us and asking us to step out of the car with our hands up. I said good night to Shane and ran up to my bed room. My eyeliner was every where. I washed my face and went to bed.

**The end for now! And I swear to you that Erik will be in soon. This is just the chapters where he's not… umm… yea. Lol bye!**


	3. Chapter 3

Shane is… dead… The big giant light fixture fell on top of him… He didn't die instantly. He suffered. The last words he said to me were. I love you. I could have died. He told me before that he had a present for me and it was a mystery. He said it was in his shirt pocket. Once he died, I took it out. It was a gold necklace… a cross. I recognized it from somewhere. I couldn't move once he was dead. Everyone was gathered around us. Summer left in tears. I just sat there looking at the only person I had ever let close enough to me to love. I swore then and there, that I would never let any one love me, again

**6 weeks later**

"Come on. You have got to get over this." Summer was trying to persuade me to go to the mall with her. I didn't want to because that was the first date Shane and I had. I had gone into a state of severe depression. Cutting and what not. Summer flipped out and took my razors and made me wear long sleeved shirts and stuff till they healed. They still left long lace like scars all over my wrist. I kept telling her that it was no big deal and that I could just wrap some gauze around it and be fine, but she wouldn't let that happen. She came over every day and doctored me. I look back on that now and thank her, silently.

"Please will you come?" She asked pleadingly.

"I'm sorry, I'm just not ready for that." I replied sincerely

"Well, fine then. Stay here and pout over your dead boy friend. See if I care!" She ran out of the room.

"_3, 2, 1." _I thought in my mind. At the end of one, she came rushing back into the room.

"I'm so sorry!"

"It's fine." I replied. "Why don't you help me figure out the "mystery" behind this necklace?"

"Sure." She sat down on the floor next to me. I had my laptop and several books and paper scattered randomly across the floor in front of me. "The first thing you need to do is get organized." She said looking around at the mess I'd made.

"Yes, mother." I replied. Some friends and I had started joking around with her a month back that she was our mom because she always cleaned up after us after we ate lunch. Some times she would come over to my house and clean my room for 7 and a half hour. Yea. She takes good care of us. She started picnicking up the papers and books.

"What do you think it could mean?"

"I have no clue." I said looking blankly at the necklace. Then it came to me. I opened The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux **(I'm not sure if I spelled that right. You can yell at me if I didn't) **I flipped to the back where it had pictures of things, the phantom's mask, Christine's rose, Raoul's fopness… There it was… the necklace… It didn't talk about it very much; it said that he was disappointed in her because she couldn't figure out the mystery behind it… I thought about it and kept reading the text under the picture. _"… a gold cross made by Erik for his one true love, Christine. It represented the love he had for her. The love that could have filled 4 hearts…" _Wow. That was really badly written and cheesy. I looked back down at the necklace. 4 hearts… 4 hearts… I found a teeny, tiny clasp on the very top of it. I undid it. It unfolded into 4 hearts. Like a key of sorts…

"Well, I think I just figured it out! Summer, pack your bags. The school year is over, and we are going to Paris."

* * *

**Just because I know I am going to get like a million and a half freaking people telling me about how there were no pictures in there and how there wasn't even a necklace… and How I said that one part twice… I don't care… lol thanks that's just part of the story! Lol**


	4. Chapter 4

I had never ridden in a plane my whole life. I was terrified to. I had all my bags packed and was standing at the entrance to the plane. I just stood there like a deer caught in headlights. Summer pinched me and forced me onto the plane. I sat on the isle seat in order to not look down. The seats were small; the plane packed with people. I sat there saying to myself, I'm okay, I'm okay.

"Layla? Are you okay?"

"I'm not okay!" I said I looked around the plane, willing it to turn into a car. The pilots voice came on the intercom.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are expecting a smooth flight and wonderful weather. In case of an emergency…" His voice droned on and on. I just wanted to take off so we could land in Paris. I was getting very antsy. I started tapping my foot and looking around at every one. I saw a rather large man carrying a little girl in his arms. He was tickling her. She was laughing hysterically. I saw a woman sitting next to a man. They were holding hands. I guessed they were on there honey moon. I guess this wouldn't be so bad if I could just keep looking around at the people and making up stories to there lives. I looked over at Summer. She was quietly talking to the punk next to her. From the way she was twisting her hair around and biting her lip, I could tell she liked him.

As it turned out, He was a high school drop out, had several piercing and tattoos.

Summer is quite odd though. I thought to myself. I kept looking around. I saw an old man sitting by himself. I wondered what type of things he had accomplished in his life. He had a cane with him. I decided that he had been in the civil war and had fought for Lincoln… well that was a long time ago. He was in World War 2. There we go. A bomb was thrown at him and permanently damaged his leg. Yes. I'm a loser.

As we got off the plane, I saw Summer blush and hand a piece of paper to her little French man. I looked at her and smirked. "Getting a little friendly aren't we?"

"Shut up. We're just friends." She said trying to convince me.

"Your smile gave it away, Autumn." I said. She looked at me and rolled her eyes. She hated it when I called her autumn. Her parents cruelly named her Summer Autumn Winter. And yet, she still loves them. Crazy child.

"Where is the opera?" She asked trying to get away from that particular subject.

"It's towards the middle of the town/city/state/country thing." I said forgetting we were in a different country.

"Well, let's go then. I don't want to spend this trip trying to find the darn thing."

"Yes ma'am." I said laughing at her. She just glared at me and went over to a tourist booth and bought a map.

Later 

"Here we are! Aren't you excited?"

"Ecstatic." Summer said dryly

"Come on, why aren't you excited?"

"I am, I'm just tired from the trip is all. Once we get a hotel room, I'll feel much better."

"I didn't plan on staying in a hotel room. There are many rooms in this place. All we have to do is audition and then we'll find out if have a room, or if we completely sucked and they don't want to hire us."

"Then what?"

"Then, we sneak in."

"Isn't that illegal?"

"Your point?" I asked looking at her skeptically

"What ever, just… oh I don't know. This is just way to sudden for me. I need a good nap before I do any kind of auditioning."

"Well, I guess we are ahead of schedule. I'll go rent a motel and you go tune your violin or something."

"You say that like the violin isn't as important as your _voice_."

"I'm sorry, will you please go and tune your wonderful violin that is far better than my _voice_?"

"Now your just being mean."

"Okay, okay. How bout we both go in, rent the motel room, and we _both_ tune our voices and violin. Okay?"

"Alright. Fine." She said reluctantly.

"Thank you!" I exasperatedly replied.

**Later than later**

"_The heart will go on and oooooooooooooon" _Well, so far, there had been no real competition. This last one was way over verbratoed ( sp? I think you know what I mean) and she held everything out way to long. Not to mention the fact that she chose the worst song that she could possibly chose.

"Miss Layla Ward, would you please step up?" The director calmly asked.

"Yes sir, thank you."

"What song will you be singing?"

"Think of me, sir."

"Please give your music to the piano player Miss." The piano began playing. My entrance came and I began to sing.

"_Think of me. Think of me fondly, when we've said goodbye! Remember me once in a while, please promise me you'll try…"_

**Towards the end of the song**

"_You will think ooooooooooooooooooooooooof me!" _I didn't the ending perfectly. Not a note was out of tune. I'm not normally confidant in lots of things I do, but that was one of the only times that I was. Not to be rude or anything, of course. The audience sat there for a minute than one person started clapping. The rest began, everyone was standing up. I bowed and ran off stage.

Summer's turn was up. She took her violin in hand and went up on stage. She played some kind of a really hard Mozart thing. She was amazing. She got the same kind of ovation as I did. I knew we would both be in. She looked confident too. As sat there in my seat, I thought I had seen a little bit of a shadow creep across one of the boxes above the stage…

* * *

**Well, there we are. I have updated. How bout you review? **


	5. Chapter 5

**Hey guys! How are you? Yea, I'm really excited because this guy that is like an amazing voice teacher agreed to let me take lessons from him. He said that he was really impressed with my voice and that he was going to ask me! I'm so excited… that kind of sounded bragish… That's not how I meant it… I swear. But any way, here's the new chapter.**

"You, Miss Layla, will be staying in room 66. And you," he said looking at Summer, "will be in room 231."

"231? That's way far away from Layla! I can't be so far away! I don't even speak French!"

"Well, if you would like, I could not take either one of you and put you on a plane back to that dreadful place you call America."

"Thank you sir." I said as I picked up my things and walked into the room. We went into Summer's room first. It was nice. Small but nice. It had a small mirror on one side and a twin sized bed on the other. Nothing elaborate. Just a plain room.

"This is nice." Summer said looking around. "Of course in a week there will be several holes and pictures in these walls, of Orlando Bloom, Johnny Depp, Hugh Jackson…." Her voice sort of just kept going on and on so I just ignored her telling me about all the men that would soon be on her walls. Amazing how she can come to such a beautiful historical place and only worry about her room. I decided to drop my stuff of in my room and go explore. Not for any underground lakes or anything…;)

I turned the key in the lock and walked in. I dragged my stuff in and looked around. A quick intake of breath came from my mouth. The room was huge! Much bigger than Summer's. There was a mirror attached to the wall that took up the whole wall. The bed was huge and had beautiful pillows and a feather comforter on it. I collapsed onto it and looked at the beautiful Persian rug that lay at my feet. It was beautiful; it had so many different colors and patterns! I could never let Summer see this room, she would die, and die very jealous…

"Layla? Are you in here? Why did you- what the heck? How did you get such a good room and I got stuck with some stupid small one?"

"I guess it was the only one they had available." I said trying to make her feel better.

"It's so far away from every one else's. I wonder if this is where you'll find your _opera ghost_." She said making fun of me.

"Even if I do find him, you won't believe me."

"That's right. I just came on this trip for the sights." Why do I associate with such bratty people?

"Umm… okay… Are you against my singing too; Or how about my acting? Are you against that?"

"I really don't need to deal with this. I'm going to go practice in _my _room now." She said as she walked out the door. I just watched her leave while shaking my head. That girl is so… no words can describe her.

**6 Months later**

"Please start from the beginning again, Miss."

"Yes sir." I had been practicing the same song for about twenty minutes and had been screwing up the whole time. This song reminded me a lot of Shane and I was just thinking about him and not concentrating on the work ahead of me. I looked up at the director as he started the piano again. My entrance came… and left. I didn't start.

"Miss Layla… that was your entrance…"

"I'm sorry sir. I'm very tired tonight. I think I'm done." I said as I left the stage and went down the darkened, lonely hallway to my room.

My room was dark, just how I'd left it, except for one thing… I thought I'd seen a slight glow coming from the mirror. That was ridiculous. Then I remembered the whole reason I'd come to this place. I was very interested in it all of a sudden. I left the light off. I silently crossed the room to the mirror. I guess it made no difference if the mirror was two, but I still didn't want to risk it. Maybe he couldn't see me if the lights were all off. I stepped towards the mirror and began searching for a crease of some sort. Suddenly I heard a low rumbling sound. Then the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard.

"Why do you mourn child? What is it you fear? Who do you love?"I looked to the ceiling where I heard the voice coming from.

"I fear no one, I love some one dead, and I mourn for them that have gone astray." Wow suddenly I was talking in an odd language, like old English…

"Come with me to a place where you neither morn, nor love." Strangely enough, I was being pulled towards the mirror. I went willingly enough to it, though. I stopped in front of it when I saw something that truly horrified me.

**Cliff hanger!**


	6. Chapter 6

"_Come with me to a place where you neither morn, nor love." Strangely enough, I was being pulled towards the mirror. I went willingly enough to it, though. I stopped in front of it when I saw something that truly horrified me._

Laying over in the chair by the fire place, was Summer… Dead Summer… I ran over to her. The masked man must have seen my distress because he grabbed my arm to restrain me. I looked at him with horror written all over my face.

"What happened?" I yelled angrily.

"She wasn't polite. I had to do something. I couldn't have you associating with people that would cause you stress… that would put strain on your voice!"

"So you _killed _her?"

"No. She is simply sleeping in a deep sleep. I will send her back to the _United States_ perfect and unharmed. Her memory will be wiped clean. She won't remember who you are, or where she has been the past year."

"I've only been here about 6 months." I said

"Yes, but I don't want to take any chances. Now, would you like to come with me, or keep the dead company…"

"You said she wasn't dead!"

"She may as well be!" He raised his voice at me! I didn't know much about French culture, but I did know that it was a very nasty thing to do in front of a lady.

"Excuse me." I said politely and began moving to the other side of the room where the door was.

"Oh no, you aren't going to leave me. I want you to stay right here. Either come with me, or stay in here _forever._"

"So you're basically taking away my freedom either way…" I said trying to stall so I could think of a plan. I decided that running away from a psychotic man in my dressing room was better than following him into a dark alley, so I did what any girl would do. I ran for the door. The opera people made the mistake of putting the lock on the outside of the door. Once I got there, the door had locked… by itself… that was odd. I looked over at the masked man. He was smiling madly at me.

"Do I frighten you, dear Christine?" Christine? Had this nut job just called me Christine? The necklace! I was wearing the necklace! (**Just to let you all know, this is not the way I feel about the wonderful Phantom of the opera/ Erik/ Gerik/Gerard/Angel of Music… you get where I'm going… I love him! I would go with him in a second. But this girl is stupid and doesn't understand that he is amazingly beautiful on the inside and such… lol)**

"Come with me. We will make music." This guy was really starting to creep me out. I took his hand because I was afraid of what he'd do if I didn't. He led me down into a corridor with a million and one steps. I was wearing heals and a dress that went out about ten feet from that nights performance, and tripped many times. At one point, I decided to stop and take off the petty coats and heels and simply walk in bare feet and a limp 18 hundreds dress. The man looked at me strangely and then whistled. At first, I thought it was some weird French cat call and I was about to slap him when I saw a beautiful white horse come galloping up the stairs.

He assisted me onto it and I rode the rest of the way till we came to a boat. But during that time, we got to know each other a little bit better. He told me his name, Erik, and how old he was… a couple centuries… I thought he was just some crazy guy trying to impersonate Erik until he began to sing to me. Then I knew it was the real him. I sat there a while after he finished his song. I decided to start singing a duet I knew. He began to sing along with me. I swear he knew every song there was on the face of this earth. We sang for hours till we came to a little boat. He helped me in and we continued singing until we came to a small house on a hill. He climbed very gracefully onto the ground and held out his hand to me. I took it and he led me to the piano. He taught me the way to sit and stand while singing… I learned so much those few weeks I spent with him…

**I know the chapters a bad one, but I really wanted to get something posted so I could feel accomplished! Lol here it is! Enjoy it! P.S. if there is anything you want to tell me… even if it's bad… I would really like to here it so please leave a review! Thanks a lot!**


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